In a piece of notable breadth and readability, Paul Conkin bargains an even-handed and in-depth examine the key American-made kinds of Christianity—a various crew of non secular traditions, every one of which displays an important holiday from western Christian orthodoxy. opting for six precise kinds, Conkin examines the key denominations consultant of every unique number of American Christianity: recovery (Churches of Christ, Disciples of Christ); humanistic (Unitarians, Universalists); apocalyptic (Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses); Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints); non secular (Christian technology, Unity); and ecstatic (Holiness and Pentecostal denominations).

King Francis was promptly initiated in the order and took up the role of grand protector of the Carbonari in his native France. The Carbonari promptly spread through France, Germany and England where it became known as ‘Forest Masonry’. They practised their own religions free from the interference • 45 • SECRET SOCIETIES of the Catholic Church. They struck up alliances with other secret societies, most successfully with the Freemasons. Their objectives included gathering together enough like-minded men for any action required against repression by the government or the military.

He was swiftly arrested and sent to Siberia while several followers were beaten mercilessly. Others who had not submitted themselves to castration were told to keep quiet and to avoid active recruitment but, despite the capture and internment of the prime mover of the castration cult, the movement continued to grow. The authorities remained bafﬂed by this expansion. Selivanov escaped and made his way once more to Moscow where the Tsar ﬁrst gave him an audience and then promptly sent him to an asylum.

But no initiation ceremony can be as extreme as that employed by the Castrators of Russia. ‘Castrated’), their inﬂuence spread far and wide and, despite the severe nature of their initiation process, they made many thousands of converts, from the humblest citizen to the aristocracy of Russia and the Balkans. Many considered them to be mad (it is not hard to understand why) but the insane among their ranks were very much in the minority. The Skoptsi beliefs were focused on a version of Christianity but their ideas were really based in the old mystery schools in which saints, monks and ascetics could attain an afﬁnity with the divine by removing the baser instincts of sexual temptation.